Last Updated by Tom on March 8, 2010 at 3:41 pm
I have always been fascinated by radio towers. While some people hardly pay attention to them, I like radio, and it is interesting to me to see where the signals are coming from. The FCC maintains an extensive database of records relating to what radio towers do. The amount of data available is amazing. The FCC website is really hard to navigate in my opinion, but if you get to the media bureau (fcc.gov/mb), you are half way to the radio and TV information. One of my favorite websites of all time is radio-locator.com. It takes the information available from the FCC and presents it in an easy to understand fashion. If you are ever bored, jump over to radio-locator.com and punch in a couple of your favorite stations. You’ll be amazed by the information you find.
For Gusties who live on the North end of campus, the radio tower on Grace Street is a big part of the landscape. I thought people might be interested to know a little bit more about the tower. It is used to broadcast KRBI-FM. The FCC and radio-locator.com both give information about the station.
When I was reviewing the information recently, I learned something kind of interesting. Three Eagles Communication, the company that owns KRBI-FM, has a construction permit from the FCC to broadcast the station from another tower they own adjacent to their studios in North Mankato. Scroll down to the bottom of the FCC or radio-locator.com information to learn more about this.
I think this is particularly interesting, as it may mean that KRBI-FM is in the process of moving its broadcast location.
For more information on the actual tower from the FCC, see this page.
On another note, there is a tower located near the Saint Peter High School football field, not far away. Midwest Wireless, who was bought out by Verizon Wireless, owns this tower, according again to FCC records. I would thus assume this is a cellular tower.
Sorry for this nerdy post, I hope someone enjoys it. I have more exciting jingles on the way!
Last Updated by Tom on January 25, 2010 at 12:38 pm
The media has always served a purpose in our democratic society. It is entity that checks up on established society, and keeps this establishment responsible for their actions.
In the past twenty years, media outlets have shifted from being primarily privately owned, to being large commercial enterprises.
Initially, large media groups might look like a great thing. Large media enterprises can share content, personalities, and more throughout their affiliate base. As media groups get bigger, they seem to be more controlled by a singular set of values and greed, however. This results in the distribution of lower quality content, which is ultimately bad for media consumers.
In order for it to perform its objective, media must be independent. It must give those without a voice a chance to speak if it wants to serve as the agent of change it was initially called to be. When media outlets merge into huge entities, there is no incentive for the employees to do productive journalistic work. If someone else has already prepared some content for air, why would one question it. Besides, if you work for the only media outlet, you have already captured the ratings, anyway.
The other big problem that comes about when outlets merge is financial greed. If you can run some Hollywood gossip, why would you work hard to produce more challenging pieces, like investigative works? Small outlets, who have owners who care about their outlets, make sure this doesn’t happen; but big outlets look at their pocketbooks first. Long-term, why would people pay attention to a media outlet if they are just repeating the same rumors as the other outlets?
Media conglomeration, as it is know, has been especially prevalent in radio, for whatever reason. Technology has no doubt been a part of this. It is really simple to throw some music on a computer, rent a tower, and call yourself a radio station (don’t forget to hit play).
Clear Chanel is one of the largest media groups in the U.S., owning six radio stations in the Minneapolis area. They are a classic example of a media giant. They have similar websites, and share way too much with each other. Rick Kupchella, a former news anchor in the area (KARE 11 TV) is now reading the morning news on multiple of the Minneapolis Clear Chanel stations. While Kupchella is a good personality and has a great deal of experience, his opinion of what great news is should only be one voice of many serving the Minneapolis community on the morning radio.
I have been taking a Journalism course this January, which has been a neat way to spend the month. We have discussed many of these trends in the media business, which I have really been meaning to write about here for a while. What finally prompted me to write this was a video I saw on YouTube tonight, however.
I like getting the inside scoop on the media, so I decided to poke around the net tonight. I ended up watching a video about a DJ who works at “Max FM” in the middle of the night. It was and interesting sequence of six ten minute videos. What I really liked about the series was that the DJ was honest and real with his audience. He takes the viewer around the many stations at his office, none of which are manned at the hour of the night he works. The office is quiet, and the DJ admits to being tired during his show in the series.
While I thought this was a great video series, in that it took the time to take the viewer around the entire office; it communicated a problem with the mainstream media. The DJ was just reading a few weather reports and introducing tunes on his station, and all of the other stations in the complex were just running on auto-pilot. Where is the originality? What is this media outlet producing that others are not? What is the difference between this and my iPod?
To be fair, I may not have gotten a fair view of this outlet, given the time of my video visit – middle of the night on the weekend. Granted, there were some pretty cool signed country posters, and the DJ pointed out the offices of two personalities who are kind of big at the station. I think this video series depicts a passive media that is present in many places, though.
I watched another video, with Robert Scoble interviewing Michael Zwerling, who seems to be doing radio the right way. He is full of personality, knowledgeable, and truly committed to his industry. Zwerling, known as “MZ” owns KSCO-AM, 1080 in Santa Cruz, California. I would highly recommend that anyone interested in the media industry take a look at the video. MZ displays so much character, and is what I feel is missing from the mainstream media.
He is not overly concerned with the money, and is not about syndication. From the movie, about six minutes in, MZ says:
“You can run a radio station for a lot less than I choose [to]. I don’t even want to be in the business unless I can have a radio station with a heart, and a soul, and a personality. Just about every radio station left in the country is corporate owned, and is in actuality a computer in a closet somewhere that’s just controlling the feeds that come in from the satellite and injecting local commercial recordings. That to me is not broadcasting; that’s not radio. I realize there aren’t too many people like me left, and I think that is sort of sad.”
MZ seems to understand the problems with media as it is today. He knows that media must have a personalty, and serve its audience with unique content. He understands that radio is not living up to its dream.
In many ways, we are living in a new era. The internet is the big new communication wave, which I know will be big in my lifetime. Like the radio, many have tried to throw cheap content at the net. Again, MZ seems to understands the problem with this. Later in the video, he states:
“Just because bandwidth is inexpensive doesn’t mean anything you put on it is going to be attractive to people.”
The internet has given the average citizen the opportunity to setup a blog, accessible to the world in minutes, but it does not make bad content worth more. In fact, with more media options, from TV, to radio, to the web; time is worth more. Technology will change, but providing quality content will always be important.
I want to be a part of the media revolution, in some way. I don’t totally know how, but I hope I help make a positive difference in the lives of others through the production of unique, thought-provoking content; and I hope that others will be inspired to do the same.
Last Updated by Tom on January 19, 2010 at 11:50 am
I was recently on the White House website. I was interested in taking a look after I heard that they recently switched the backend to Drupal. It was a great endorsement for the open source community.
The other thing I like about the site is the amount of video it features. I was actually a bit surprised at the amount of video available. They post something nearly every day. I particularity liked a video about the Marine who serves as a doorman in the West Wing. I had no idea that there was someone with such a job. The piece was well put together, and gives a glimpse into White House life; something I really appreciate, having never had the opportunity to visit the White House.
Welcome to 